Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

“What made him notice it?”

“A ’forty-two Buick? In a Mexican neighborhood?”

“But he didn’t stop?”

“There’s nothing illegal about parking there. Figured it must be somebody visiting.”

“The church was open?”

“Not for mass. They don’t lock churches around here. This one pulls in a tourist now and then. They’ve got an old reredos there that’s supposed to be something special.”

“At that time of night? What time was it, anyway?”

“Nine maybe, more or less. He’s a little fuzzy about that. If you ask me, he was taking his own sweet time about answering the complaint and didn’t want to say so.”

“Where’s the church in relation to where Bruner was found?”

“Well, it’s out a ways, but you go straight down Cerrillos over the bridge and you’re on the Alameda.”

“So it’s the first park?”

“In that direction, yes.”

“Okay. So he saw Bruner?”

“No, just the car. He thought it was funny, a car like that, but like I said, he figured it was somebody visiting. You know, some Anglo with a girlfriend down there.”

“Is there a lot of that?”

“All over the world.”

“Very funny. So if he didn’t see him, we don’t know for sure he was actually there.”

“Oh, we know. We found his blood.”

He imagined Holliday’s face as he said it, the jaws clamping shut in satisfaction. He listened to the silence for a minute. “Want to tell me about it?”

“There’s a patch of ground near the church, right under where the tile sticks out. Seems it never rains there, so we got some dry ground with some blood on it.”

“And it’s Burner’s.”

“O negative. I figure it’s a safe assumption.”

“So Bruner gets hit next to some Spanish church and his body winds up in the park and his car disappears.”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“I wish I could say any of it made sense.”

“Well, I wish you could too. And while you’re at it, try making some sense of his pants now. Kinda changes things, don’t you think? Doesn’t fit, that kind of activity at a church. Would they do that there? Then driving him all over with his pants down. No sense to it. Could be we’re sniffing around the wrong tree here. You know, maybe he wasn’t that way at all.”

“It was your idea.”

“Well, I’ve been known to be wrong. Once or twice.”

“Then how do you explain the pants?”

“I can’t. Yet. I’m just saying it’s a hell of a place to have sex.”

“Well, for that matter, it’s a hell of a place to kill somebody. But why move him?”

“The thought that occurred to me was that they didn’t want him found so easy. He’d stick out like a sore thumb at the church, but he could have been days in the park. Well, one.”

“Then why not just take him out to the country and bury him?”

“Well, if you get a better idea, let me know.”

“You talk to the neighbors?”

“Sure. Nada. Amazing how the Spanish mind their business when the police come around. I never knew a people for going to bed so early.”

“But why move him? That’s what I don’t get.”

“I don’t know. But I tell you one thing, it sure wasn’t out of respect for the church.”

Perhaps people needed to be together after a death in the family, or perhaps Professor Weber’s evenings were always better attended than he liked to think, but his house was crowded. A cluster of music stands had been set in one corner of the living room, and people spilled out in groups down the hallway in a line to the kitchen, where the coffee and trays of cakes were arranged on a crocheted tablecloth. The air was warm and close with cigarette smoke and the overpowering scent of butter, sugar, and cinnamon. Connolly felt wrapped in the cozy sweetness of a prewar bakery and wondered for a minute where all the coupons had come from; did the bachelors trade Frau Weber their ration books for these once-a-week memories of home? The coffee smelled rich and strong, but as many people held glasses as coffee cups, and the hum of conversation rose and fell in the familiar lapping waves of a cocktail party. Pregnant women occupied the few upholstered easy chairs, with friends draped on the broad arms, balancing plates. Oppenheimer was there, a martini glass in one hand, his hair so short that without his hat his head seemed almost shaved. He barely acknowledged Connolly with a nod. His wife, Kitty, sat near him, her legs curled beneath her on a sofa, an ashtray in her lap, but paid no attention to her husband as she stared through her smoke, preoccupied with some interior conversation. She had clearly ceded all hostess duties to Johanna Weber, who bubbled all around her, directing people to food and making introductions.

“Mr. Connolly, yes, my husband has told me about you. I’m so glad you could come. Do you know Mrs. Oppenheimer? Kitty, Mr. Connolly.” Kitty glanced up, but Johanna Weber had already moved him along, introducing everyone in their immediate vicinity. “Mr. Connolly, Professor Weissmann, his wife, Frieda. Mr. Connolly. Dr. Carpenter. Dr. Carpenter is visiting us this week—” And so it went, a party trick, one name following another without pause and without forgetting. Connolly thought she was wasted on the Hill. In Washington she could have run one of the great houses in Rock Creek, her mind a vast photographic file of names and connections.

“And this is Emma Pawlowski.” She hurried on, scarcely noticing that Emma’s back was turned to her. “Her husband, Daniel.”

Connolly stopped and nodded, hopelessly curious, but Pawlowski was a pleasant-looking young man, eager to be polite, who had obviously never heard of him and wanted only to resume his conversation with Carpenter. His skin was a scholar’s pale white, with what seemed to be a permanent five-o’clock shadow.

“Yes, we’ve met,” Connolly said as Emma turned around. She looked oddly festive, her nails and mouth vivid red, her eyes shining. Connolly realized it was the first time he had seen her in a skirt, so that she seemed overdressed, as if she had put on heels and makeup for another party and landed here instead.

“Again and again,” she said. “You seem to be everywhere.” And then to her husband, who looked mildly puzzled, “Darling, this is Mr. Connolly I told you about. Or did I? Anyway, he very kindly drove me to Hannah’s, so you must be especially nice. He’s new on the Hill.”

“Welcome,” Pawlowski said in the flat, monotonal accent of one who had learned too many languages. Connolly wondered fleetingly if Conrad had sounded like this, both Polish and English squeezed of all inflection. “Whose unit are you with?”

“Oh darling, he’s not a scientist. He’s with security or something. It is security, isn’t it?” she said, all innocence.

Connolly nodded.

“But you like music,” Pawlowski finally said, at a loss to explain him, and not sure it was worth the effort.

“No, he’s come to spy on us,” Emma said playfully. “Absolutely tone-deaf. Can’t hear a note.”

Pawlowski looked at her, then smiled gently, a lover’s indulgence for what he didn’t understand. It seemed enough that she was lovely and spirited; he didn’t have to keep up to admire her for it.

“Then I will have to play more loudly,” he said, missing the joke. The effect was to make him seem younger than he was, a boy making his way. Connolly looked at his polite face and thought about the unreliability of language. He had studied with Meitner, a man of importance at the KWI, but faced with idle chat he became an awkward teenager. Like so many others on the Hill, he would have to retreat to the language of science to find his maturity.